This accreditation purely about being competent to keep a registrar. It is not about efficacy of homeopathy. But Andy is right. Perception is everything, and the public need to be made more fully aware that homeopathy is junk (that placebo is at play), and that PSA accreditation actually has no bearing whatsoever with regard to medical treatments.

As Novella mentions, it’s probably a good idea to remind ourselves of Gorski’s article on why it is important that rigorous controls are maintained on all treatments and why we should not fall for a seemingly harmless “What’s the harm?” argument:

It’s just so easy showing that homeopathy is junk, a pseudoscience, and nothing more than a placebo. But it bothers me that so many people think that homeopathy is real. The nonsense people believe! Anyway, Donald Prothero has recently posted a good article on homeopathy:

A consortium of pharmaceutical companies in Germany have been paying a journalist €43,000 to run a set of web sites that denigrates an academic who has published research into their products.

These companies, who make homeopathic sugar pills, were exposed in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in an article, Schmutzige Methoden der sanften Medizin (The Dirty Tricks of Alternative Medicine.)

Disgusting.

The victim of the attacks, Edzard Ernst, was instrumental, alongside Simon Singh, to further highlight the bogus nature of the foundations of chiropractic treatments in 2009.

If evidence and reason cannot end homeopathy, the law will. – Andy Lewis

However, like a zombie from a low-budget horror movie returning to eat our brains, homeopathic “medicines” are likely to be repackaged and sold to the public; greed is a great motivator and can triumph over ethics.

There comes a time when it’s clear that only the delusional or the deceitful claim evidence for their case when, in reality, said evidence indicates the opposite. Homeopaths and proponents of homeopathy have exhibited such delusional/deceitful behaviours regularly. The Quackometer and Zeno’s Blog describe the most recent of these behaviours:

Some people argue that, even if homeopathic treatments don’t cure, at least they don’t harm. Well, that’s nonsense as well. Use of homeopathic “treatments” often discourages the patient from seeking proper medical care. The above article, and the website What’s the harm? explain quite clearly.